when shapeways added the detailed frosted material they set the markup based on the max detailed value irregardless of weather you offer the model in that material. if you did not your markup will be $0.

because shapeways does not inform you of $0 sales you will not know how much money they have lost for you. check your shops and join my petition

Petition:
The following changes must be made:
1) To keep shapeways honesty and to alert shops to mistakes all sales must be brought to shops attention immediately(email or url callback)
2) To protect shops time investment set materials to unavailable if they calculate markup for new materials as $0.

mctrivia

Follow me on twitter http://twitter.com/mctrivia or my blog at http://4ddice.blogspot.com/

Moreover, I wish that by default the mark-up is set the same for all materials, instead of zero. Every time when a new material is added (without notification), I should immediately run along all my 100+ models and correct the mark-up. As any Shop Owner, I am not looking for more administrative work.

Strange... I got the feeling that this time Frosted Detail had been added only for models already having (regular) Detail material available and were initialized with the same markup as those older materials.
Am I wrong or is there a bug that prevented this mechanism to apply everywhere?

In case nobody has noticed: This is a recurring problem with every new or changed material and the solution is super-easy:

Shapeways should NOT make ANY second guesses on material choices nor markup values, i.e.

- DO NOT add new material choices to any model
- DO NOT guess any markup values out of blue sky
- DO NOT set any new material as primary choice (think of the silver/jewelry case)
in other words
- DO NOT fiddle with any shop items in any way

rationale:

Nobody at Shapeways knows whether an existing model is compatible with the new material. Much less, nobody at Shapeways knows whether a shop owner WANTS to offer a specific model in a specific material and at WHICH PRICE.

------

Apart from that, and if you are still reading: The entire logic behind materials needs a revamp:

- There needs to be the concept of "material groups", i.e. all variations of WSF, all variations steel, all silver, all detail, all ...
- That funny inverse logic (remove available materials) needs to be turned around. i.e. the shop owner ACTIVELY assigns his choice of "material groups" to his models. One click instead of many.

rationale:

"Material groups" would make it a lot less cumbersome to set up a shop item and also greatly reduce customer confusion.

- All reasonably designed models are made for specific types of materials. What's made for variations of detail, will not work for any of the steels and possibly not for any of the WSFs.

- A customer cannot determine whether a model will be any good when ordered in the latest-and-greatest ultra-high-tech material which Shapeways just added to the model over night.

- A customer can very well decide whether he wants that plastic item in white, black or blue (material group WSF), but should not be bothered with overpriced choices for steel which would not print, anyway.

Though I agree that simplifying selection is a good thing it is not always the best. Many of my dice can be printed in every material safely. Many people order it in WSF and die it themselves because this is the most cost effective. Not all are willing to die themselves and pay the extra for color. Others want there dice in steel only. I don't get much orders in other materials but will now for the Frosted Ultra Detailed because it makes some of the designs I made printable where they were not before. Though in that case they are only available in that material.

Though setting new materials to not available would be safest for people like me who have over 200 models it takes for ever to add a new material to all of them. I have requested shapeways to add the ability to alter the material pricing and availability through there API which would let me automate the process through my server but they are very slow to add features.

Follow me on twitter http://twitter.com/mctrivia or my blog at http://4ddice.blogspot.com/

Honestly, while you (and I, eventually) might benefit from an API, most others will not. Given the sloooooooow progress on any of the forum suggestions, I would seriously question whether API improvements are the right thing to do at this time.

Read those notes about the material inventory pseudo-spreadsheet and you may understand.

yes the 2 click would be better.
The API is the best way since shapeways is bad at getting updates that really mater to the shop owners. With the API people like me can write the fix and make it available to everyone. Writing a simple system that is not flashy and cool looking but fast and functional I could have a really useful model inventory system up and running in a day that we could all use. Normally I would just hack the form interface and parse the resulting html to get what I want done but shapeways uses such a stupid and backwards interface system that it is not easily hacked.

Follow me on twitter http://twitter.com/mctrivia or my blog at http://4ddice.blogspot.com/

when shapeways added the detailed frosted material they set the markup based on the max detailed value irregardless of weather you offer the model in that material. if you did not your markup will be $0.

[...snip...]

mctrivia

I just checked my models... those that are available in detail materials have the frosted available with the same markup as regular detail... the models that don't have detail as an option don't have frosted either - seems like SW got it right to me (or did I completely miss the point?)

And just in case you didn't know... there was a hiccup when the last set of S&F colours were added - all made available with $0 markup... but that was kept quiet and fixed rather quickly before most people noticed. I don't think the same mistake would be made twice in the space of a few months!

Nancy, Bart or Ralph would be the right people to contact directly about such matters

Material groups where each shop owner can assign and remove materials to and from would solve a lot of nasty problems.
Also markups can then be assigned to material groups

What's also often needed to have some information about the minimal wall size found in an object to disable materials in which the object is not printable. I often have the situation that a model is rejected caused by some materials I've added later on (maybe not having in mind that some material isn't suitable for the model)

Moreover, I wish that by default the mark-up is set the same for all materials, instead of zero. Every time when a new material is added (without notification), I should immediately run along all my 100+ models and correct the mark-up. As any Shop Owner, I am not looking for more administrative work.

Oskar

+1 !!

I agree - I have 270 models to administer - this is nuts !

I recently replied to an old customer that my markup is ONE for ALL materials - i do not "punish" a customer by adding a higher markup just because who chose silver or stainless steel.

So by default a markup should be set the same for all materials instead of zero - then each shop owner decide what to do next.

Guys, we do notice your input. Please give us some time, or actually even better send us some PHP coders! We have a ton of code to fix / work on and only 24h a day.

With regards to new material introductions, I hear your input.
We will look into the introduction queries and exclude shops perhaps? So add material for all models not in shops.
Shopowners can add themselves? The obvious downside is actually less sales for you, because it then takes time to change your models (the ones you want) to have the material.

So add material for all models not in shops.
Shopowners can add themselves? The obvious downside is actually less sales for you, because it then takes time to change your models (the ones you want) to have the material.

I think the only thing that can solve such a issue is the already given proposal of having material classes.
The material classes are handled by the designer and materials can be added or removed from classes.
The designer assigns a class to a model so adding materials can be a very quick topic.

In my case I would have:

SmallWallSize
+WSF
+BSF
+GSF
...

BiggerWallSize
+ SmallWallsize
+ TD
+ WD
+ BD

I would add FD and UD to SmallWallSize.

There can be one list of not suitable materials per model handled by shapeways and the designer.

NotSuitableFor
+ BD

In that case this model can not be ordered in a material which is part of the assigned material class but was recognized from shapeways as not suitable.
A designer can remove the material after an update of the mesh which may cover the problem.

I think the only thing that can solve such a issue is the already given proposal of having material classes.
The material classes are handled by the designer and materials can be added or removed from classes.
...

In the good, old KISS tradition, the simpler approach of system-supplied material groups would solve at least 90% of the problem:

- all WSFs in one group
- all steels in one group
- all silvers in one group
- all sandstones in one group
- ...
Everything that shares a set of design rules and properties belongs into one group. Some special groups may only have a single member.

Automated additions within material groups (the latest and greatest WSF color, new ultra-super-matte silver finish) might be OK, but I have a hard time to believe that ordinary customers should be abused as testers and guineapigs for model/material compatibility.

I'm working with the web dev team to figure out the best way to fix this process (we're on Skype right now talking, actually). I do like what you guys are suggesting about material grouping and simplifying the shop inventory process. Maybe there can be an exceptions list for shopowners who want to add their own materials? Maybe we can notify shopowners a day earlier so they can prepare for the launches better?

For FUD/FD specifically, I'm not sure what exactly happened with the markup, but those of you don't have any of the old Detail Materials in your shops should not have gotten FD/FUD added. If you find out this wasn't the case, please let me know which models (if there were many just pick one) went rogue on us. We'll look up what happened in our databases so we can prevent this from happening again.

Thanks again for all your feedback--it really does help us with our priorities.

I know it does not address all your concerns. But it does help you deal with taking down a material that you don't want yet.

Basically, you can select a material and change your markups based on material. You can set a markup to a given $ amount, or you can set markups based on percentage of the base price. You can also add a material to all products or remove a material from all products.

Hopefully this makes your lives easier. The Dev Team is working hard on making the user experience of the site better, one step at a time.

Please note, the above bookmarklet was hacked together by my good friend Google and me, it is not officially a release from Shapeways. Think of it more like a little tool released by a fellow community member. Let me know if you have any questions about this tool.

Does it help you guys? Will this be useful with the next product launch? Is this a helpful, KISS solution?

Just added a feature that lets you change markup to ALL materials (meaning everything in your shop can be marked up by percentage or by fixed amount.. may take a few secs though if you have a lot of products). Enjoy!

shapeways competitors have been tempting me for a while. I like shapeways simple shop system but even that has been getting harder as more models are added.

not sure what they can do to fix high price and increase accuracy as there competitors are starting to leave shapeways in the dust. but it is a chalenge worth doing. for me accuracy is more important then price and fud is a step in right direction.

[Updated on: Mon, 09 May 2011 17:51 UTC]

Follow me on twitter http://twitter.com/mctrivia or my blog at http://4ddice.blogspot.com/

Mctrivia, was your model available in WSF before? If it wasn't available in WSF, it should not have WSF Polished--and we need to look into what went wrong.

Thanks,
Nancy

My models hsve PWSF added with 0 markup too... please remove the polished WSF option on all models until it can be made so that new materials will have the same markup of the lowest same/similar material

my recent phone boxes (FUD only) have polished WSF as a $0 markup (logged out - publically available even though they'd never print), but other models have the correct markup - and the inventory manager shows all models-for-plastics with WSFP as the same markup as WSF

The API will be useful for many things, but I do not think it's the most straightforward answer for this report. (It may be helpful for the programmers out there, but we need to make sure we address the majority of users, who use the website.)

Hey guys, we are looking into now what is happening. WSF Polished should NOT have been added to products not available in WSF. If you find this was the case, please e-mail us (nancy@shapeways.com and ben@shapeways.com) with specific information on which model was incorrectly marked up? I just checked all my models (in all accounts I have access to, not just the official Shapeways ones) that didn't have WSF, and polished was not added. So we need specifics to better troubleshoot.

Secondly, the launch plans for this material was moving forward long before this thread so unfortunately we did not change our markup strategy for this one. This was one of the reasons I tried getting out a bookmarklet so there was some stop gap while we adjust our strategies for our next launches. Please be patient, we are listening but at the same time there are other forces at work and we cannot stop everything at once.

Last, it's no surprise that we are talking about i.Materialise here, and there's nothing wrong with saying so. Don't feel like you have to beat around the bushes. In the end, we want you guys to make things--that's the goal of Shapeways, to help people create! If there are some needs we can't meet (colors, price) and other companies can, use whichever means are best suited for you. We want to empower you to create with as much free reign as possible, but we may not be able to be all things for all people. Of course, we are working to raise the bar and give you guys the best service, products, and in the end, we want to make our community happy. So we will keep working on improving our materials and services and hope that you're around it enjoy it as they improve.

Do you guys think it would be a good idea to make an exceptions list for shopowners who don't want automatic material adds?

I have given up keeping track of materials and mark ups, I just don't have the time to sift through all my models, 50+ of them, everytime a new material is added. I normally design my models for one specific material, tolerances are fine and a model that is fine for WSF will not always print in white detail. Orignially I had models that were only available in WD,BD and TD, these models when I last looked were now available in all the metal materials and a host of other materials, I haven't checked the mark ups yet.

When I designed models 12+ months ago and set the materials to only WSF with a mark up of X, I expect them to be the same now, but they are not.

I know my models and my customers better than Shapeways, I know which materials are/are not appropriate for the models and their application, I set the materials for a reason and calculate any mark ups so if one material is more expensive than the other I can place a lower markup on the most expensive one so they are more affordable. I keep meaning to go through my shop and fix everything but it's finding the time.

Damn, I better go through my shop ASAP, I could literally have lost 100s of Dollars if people have order the dyed versions of WSF at $0 mark up instead of the standard mark up WSF.

I assumed that models I did over a year ago were just as I set them but they are not. I'll sign the petition to change this, ALL customer purchases from a sellers shop should be listed even with a $0.00 mark up.

Not only is it important to know the extent of losses from the addition of materials with $0 mark up, these figures are critical for marketing as knowing how many units you have sold is important as future model designs are based upon these numbers!